


A Symphony of Souls

by LiraelClayr007



Series: Winterhawk Bingo, Round 2! [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Music, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, brief mention of unrequited Bucky/Steve in teenage years, fear of the unknown (while the winter soldier), hydra being awful as usual, nausea/sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: “Maybe we just don’t have soulmates,” Stevie says. He hasn’t heard anything either. “Don’t start with me. It happens sometimes,” he says, all defensive, when Bucky shoots him a look.“Yeah, it happens sometimes,” Bucky concedes. “But it’s very rare. What are the odds that the two of us, best friends since forever, both end up without soulmates?”Stevie shrugs.*In a world where when one soulmate listens to music the other hears it their head, Bucky's never heard a single note. Saddened, sure he's one of the few born without a soulmate, he goes off to Europe to fight.This is the story of his journey through time, from silence to sounds to a symphony.
Relationships: Background Steve Rogers/Tony Stark - Relationship, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo, Round 2! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892659
Comments: 22
Kudos: 197
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo Round Two





	A Symphony of Souls

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a soulmate au before, but I had this idea and it just...worked. The style is a little different for me, but... *shrugs* ...it was fun to write. I hope you enjoy!!
> 
> Love, Lira 🏹
> 
> Winterhawk Bingo!  
> Square Filled: N1 - Soulmates AU

Bucky’s seventeen years old, and he’s never heard a sound from his soulmate.

“Maybe we just don’t have soulmates,” Stevie says. He hasn’t heard anything either. “Don’t start with me. It happens sometimes,” he says, all defensive, when Bucky shoots him a look.

“Yeah, it happens sometimes,” Bucky concedes. “But it’s very rare. What are the odds that the two of us, best friends since forever, both end up without soulmates?”

Stevie shrugs.

Bucky’s got thoughts on the matter, actually. He just can’t say them out loud. Because Stevie’s his best friend. His best friend who likes girls, _not_ fellas.

Not _him_.

It’s still possible, he thinks. Maybe. Sometimes there are soulmates who are just meant to spend their lives together. Not lovers, just life-mates. They could be that. And he’d be happy with that, happy just to be with Stevie always. And anyway, maybe they haven’t heard the music because they’re always together, so there isn’t any music to hear.

He decides to test out the theory.

A few nights after their talk he sneaks out of the apartment they share with Becca and goes to a club. He doesn’t dance, doesn’t even have a drink, just listens to the band play. Listens long enough for his soulmate to hear...if he’s got one out there listening.

When he gets home Stevie asks where he’s been, asks why he missed dinner, talks about the new book he got from the library that afternoon.

Maybe Stevie’s right. Maybe they don’t have soulmates.

“I’m gonna fight, Stevie.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. He’d already known it was coming; Bucky had felt him carefully not asking for weeks. “What will I do here, all alone?” His voice is soft. Bucky wants to hold him and never let go, but of course he can’t do that. It wouldn’t be wanted. Not in the same way.

“You’ll look out for Becca. She’ll need a big brother around. Especially if her soulmate’s music suddenly goes quiet.” Stevie nods solemnly. That’s been happening a lot lately, with all the boys going away to war. The music gets fainter as the boys get farther away, and then they die and it just...stops.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t have a soulmate,” he says suddenly. “Going away to war, putting my life on the line...I probably won’t make it. Who wants a soulmate destined to die young?”

He laughs, like he means it as a joke, but Steve’s face is pale, bloodless. “Don’t talk like that, Buck.”

“Sorry, Stevie.”

He can’t get past this radical new Steve thing. Captain _America?_ it’s ridiculous. Not to mention looking up into his best friend’s eyes. But inside he’s still little Stevie, still the same boy trying to prove himself over and over.

Still, they’re doing good work. They’re making a difference, saving prisoners and taking out Nazis. And it’s hard work, hard on the body and mind; it wears him out so much that he mostly just falls asleep at night and doesn’t even think about his non-existent soulmate.

But he hears the others around the fire sometimes. They sit, quiet, listening to the music in their heads. He’s in his tent so he can’t see them, but he knows they smile, dreamy and content. And he can hear that sometimes they hum along, just a little, just enough to let their soulmates know they’re listening. Bucky would find it sweet, endearing, if it didn’t hurt so damn much.

One morning he catches Steve’s eye, sees his own pain reflected there. They both look away, feeling raw, feeling seen. After that Bucky keeps to himself in the morning.

He knows it’s going to hurt. He knows it’s going to take away everything about him, take away everything he loves. They’ve been hurting him for weeks, trying to fill his head with lies, telling him they’re the ones who care about him because they saved him, they built him from nothing, they’re going to turn him into the perfect creation. He doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t like the sound of it at all. He wants to be James Buchanan Barnes, not some HYDRA-made creature. “I’m Bucky,” he whispers. “I’m Bucky, I’m Bucky, I’m Bucky.”

“No, you’re not,” says the man at the control panel. He says it like it’s fact, the same way someone would say, ‘Water is wet,’ or ‘The sun rises in the east.’ “You’re not Bucky, you’re the Asset, and you’re going to be so much greater than Bucky Barnes ever was. You’re a part of something now.”

 _I’ve always been a part of something_ , he thinks. Flashes of Stevie, of Becca, of warm summer days in Brooklyn play in his mind.

Just before the man pushes the button Bucky thinks, _I’m glad I don’t have a soulmate. There’s no one to cry for the lost music._

Then he begins to scream.

The Asset screams.

The men around him look up in alarm, raise their weapons automatically, looking for a threat. But then they look at the Asset, they see.

The Asset is clawing at his head, almost as if there’s something inside it he’s trying to get out. A guard gets close enough to hear what he’s saying and is surprised to hear “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,” over and over; he’s screaming the words, true terror in his voice.

And then the handler is there, with the special sedative that is the only thing that can bring down the Asset from a rage state. The only thing but the words, but the guards don’t even try to understand the difference between the time for words and the time for drugs. This is a drug time, it’s as simple as that.

“Asset. Report.” snaps the handler.

“Singing,” the Asset says. He sounds terrified. “A woman. In my head she’s singing, and I–” Suddenly the Asset leans over and vomits.

Of course the guards will have to clean that up as soon as this is all over. No janitors here. They look at each other and grimace.

“Clarify,” the handler says.

Obediently the Asset wipes his mouth then begins to sing. “Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea, and–”

“Stop,” says the handler holding up a hand.

The guards look at each other, and they can see on each other’s faces that they’re all thinking the same thing. Is this even possible? Does the Winter Soldier suddenly have a soulmate?

“This shouldn’t be possible,” says the handler thoughtfully. “Your soulmate should be gone by now. We actually thought she must have died as a child, she’s never made so much as a peep before.”

“Fix it,” the Asset begs, and the handler backhands him smartly.

The Asset doesn’t react.

“Quiet,” the handler snaps, then seems to soften. “You know, I think I _can_ fix it,” he says. Gesturing to a few of the closer guards he says, “We need to escort the Asset to the cryo chamber. He’s completed his current mission. Some time on ice might just rectify the current situation.”

The guards move into position. Not that they are needed. The Asset obeys perfectly, as always.

The Asset is looking down his scope at the target, waiting to fire, waiting for the one moment of all the moments. He always knows it when it comes. The wind feels right, the target feels right, and he is just about to still his heart to ready himself to pull the trigger when music fills his head. Loud music, jarring him out of his calm, ready state. He almost fires, but his training holds; he stills his finger in time.

He hates the music. It comes from nowhere and disappears just as suddenly and he doesn’t understand it, and yet a secret, unknown part of him _wants_ the music, and that makes him afraid. The fear is a small thing, but the Asset isn’t supposed to feel fear. To feel _anything_.

But there’s this music, this inexplicable music, and it comes from inside him. His handlers have tried to stop it but they cannot, it is something beyond their control, and this too causes the Asset to fear. Because his handlers, they have assured him from the beginning that they are in complete control, and this has always made him feel safe. When he feels anything at all.

It is almost time to fire. There’s a soothing quality to the music, even as loud as it is, and soon the Asset has forgotten his fear and disquiet and is in the calm space needed to take out his target. He lets out a breath, starts to squeeze the trigger, and the target collapses.

There’s an arrow sticking out of his throat.

The Asset is confused. But the target is down, so the mission is complete. And mostly successful. He dismantles his rifle and returns to his handlers, and by the time he gets there the music is gone.

Bucky knows Steve is trying to help him. He knows Steve just wants him to fit in, to be one of the gang, to find his place. But how can he find his place _here_ , in this big open space with all these bright happy people? Steve’s always pushing him to get out, but he mostly stays on Steve’s floor during the day and roams the Tower at night. He never thought he’d become nocturnal, but maybe the body’s internal clock changes when it lives for nearly a century. He smiles a little; maybe if he’s alive in another hundred years he’ll be “normal” again.

He’s on the roof tonight. He likes it up here. It’s quiet, or as quiet as New York City ever gets, and he doesn’t mind the cool of the wind. He’s always going to hate being truly cold–decades of going in and out of cryo chambers will do that to a guy–but this summer breeze, even up high like this, barely even registers.

He’s looking out towards his old stomping grounds, trying to remember old times, when the music in his head flips on. It’s loud, so loud he claps his hands over his ears, though of course that doesn’t do any good. He’s not hearing anything with his _ears_. It’s all in his _mind_.

And all in a rush he understands, he remembers what it means to hear music in his head. He has flashes of his time as the Asset, the fear and longing warring inside him. The unspoken sadness of never hearing a thing when he was growing up, of feeling so alone. They’d wiped all this out of him, but now it all makes sense. He never heard his soulmate when he was a kid because _his soulmate hadn’t been born yet_. He doesn’t know how that’s possible, but he’s hearing the proof right now.

Because the music is so clear, so close. As incredible as it seems, Bucky has a soulmate. Probably somewhere in New York City.

“How is it possible, Stevie?” Bucky can’t calm his heart, can barely keep his breathing under control. No one else could tell, but Steve has better hearing than even he does, and when he hears Bucky’s news and the out of control beating of his heart he grins. That bright, sunshiny smile he used to smile back in the day, when he was small and scrawny and getting his ass kicked on a daily basis.

“I don’t know, Buck. I don’t know how this soulmate thing works, but…” He shrugs, and his smile becomes sheepish, and he does that foot shuffling thing he does when he doesn’t quite know how to say something. Bucky can’t believe he’s still doing that, he learned it when he was six.

“Just spit it out. You know it’s always better that way.”

Steve turns red, caught out. “Alright. Look. I didn’t know how to tell you this. I wanted to ease my way into it, let you get used to being here for a little while first maybe, but…” He looks like he wants to run away, but Bucky’s standing there, arms crossed, waiting. “Okay. I found my soulmate here too.” He says the last bit fast, almost like it’s one word, but Bucky has supersoldier hearing and understands perfectly.

Except he doesn’t. Because it’s not possible. He heard all the words, but they don’t make any sense. He just stares at Steve, waiting for some kind of explanation. He knows Steve would never lie to him, but this is _impossible_.

Both of them?

Steve’s looking at everything in the room but Bucky. Finally he says, “It’s, ah, it’s…” He looks up at Bucky, an almost bashful smile on his face and says, “It’s Tony.”

“ _Stark_?” Bucky has to process. After several heartbeats he says. “Your soulmate is the son of the guy who did this to you in the first place? As in, if he hadn’t messed with your body, you wouldn’t be here for his son? That’s–”

“Unbelievable. Yeah, I know. But it’s true. I could hardly believe it myself at first, but then we touched…” Steve looks lost in the past for a moment, then says, “Bucky, I can’t describe it. One touch, that’s all it took. Trust me, you’ll know, when it happens for you. And you’ll believe.”

Bucky shrugs. He doesn’t understand, not yet.

They’re quiet for a few minutes; not uncomfortably so, just thinking separate thoughts. After a few minutes Bucky realizes there’s something else he wants to ask Steve, but he’s not sure how to ask without sounding like a complete asshole. It must show on his face, because Steve looks at him and grins. “Now who’s thinking too hard?” Steve teases. “Just spit it out.”

“Bastard,” Bucky mutters under his breath, but of course Steve’s ears are good enough to hear, and he chuckles.

Bucky battles within himself for a few more breaths and then says, “I didn’t think you were into guys, Stevie.”

And then Steve really laughs. “I wasn’t! I mean, I never was before. I always knew you liked men, Buck, and that never bothered me a bit, but it was always women for me.” And then he smiles the sweetest, sappiest smile Bucky’s ever seen on anyone’s face, and he says, “Until Tony.” And that’s when Bucky knows Stevie’s gone, truly gone, on Stark. It’s a bit overwhelming, seeing a look so raw and personal and real. Bucky feels almost like he’s intruding.

“It’s good to see you so happy,” he says, and he means it. He’s never seen anything like that on his friend’s face, never seen that light in his eyes, and he hopes nothing ever takes it away. It’s a good look.

Steve won’t let him hide forever. After 29 days in the Tower he drags Bucky to a team movie night.

“I’m not part of the team.”

Steve gives him the Stevie look, pursed lips and all. “Come on,” he says. “You’ve got to get out of your head a little, get into the world. Even if the world in this case is just the common floor. You can survive a couple hours there, none of us bite.” He pauses, then adds, “Much.”

Bucky grumbles the whole time they walk up the stairs.

He doesn’t know how he ever missed the way Steve and Tony look at each other, the way they gravitate towards each other as soon as they enter a common space. Bucky can almost see the air around them shift, now that he’s looking for it. Even before they get close enough to touch there’s a charge between them.

Bucky tries not to be jealous. He’s truly happy for Steve, and even for Stark. But there’s a sharp pang in his chest, and there’s nothing anyone on the fancy medical floor can do to fix it.

“Someone start the movie before those two start making out,” Sam snarks.

“As if you can talk,” Barton grumbles, just loud enough to be audible.

Natalia, curled around Sam, gives a melodious giggle.

Everyone settles onto various couches and chairs, leaning on throw pillows and covering themselves in fuzzy blankets. It’s clear they do this often, they each seem to have a place. Bucky perches uncomfortably on the front edge of a sofa, worried that if he sits back too far he might accidentally get in the way of Natalia’s feet.

Tony, sitting in Steve’s lap in a big plush chair, starts the movie.

“Woah, that’s weird,” Barton says. “It sounds like I’m in some kind of an echo chamber.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” Tony says.

“Yeah,” Natalia adds. “It sounds that way when you and your soulmate listen to music together.”

And just like that, everything changes.

Bucky freezes.

So does Barton.

Clint Barton, the coffee addicted archer, the blond haired, blue eyed, disaster.

Clint Barton, who he’s watched on the range and nodded to a few times but hasn’t gotten to know because he’s been hiding out since he got here.

Clint Barton. His soulmate.

They look at each other from opposite sides of the room, eyes locked. And suddenly Bucky understands what he couldn’t before, what Steve had been trying to explain to him that day they spoke of soulmates and inexplicable things.

_In that moment you know, and you believe._

Clint hasn’t even touched him yet–but oh the touching they will do, his skin is singing out for the contact–and already he knows.

“Hey Buck,” Clint says. His voice is rough, but also sure, steady.

“Clint,” he says. He likes the way it tastes in his mouth.

The movie is forgotten. The others in the room no longer exist. They stand, walk to each other, and when they meet in the center of the room the first thing to touch is their lips.

It’s a supernova.

Bucky’s surprised, later, to see that the windows didn’t shatter, that no one was injured, that the city is still standing. It feels like… Steve’s right, there are no words. It’s like his every molecule suddenly sings out its pleasure, with Clint’s molecules singing their own harmonies, and the resulting sound is the symphony of Bucky and Clint.

“Hey,” Clint says again, somewhat dazed this time.

Bucky can’t help but laugh. “Hey yourself, sweetheart,” he says, and Clint looks like he’s going to melt into a little puddle on the floor. It gives Bucky a warm, melty feeling of his own.

When Clint gets himself under control he says, “So Bucky and I aren’t staying for the movie. We’ll see you later!” Bucky–who had completely forgotten about the movie and everyone else in the room–gets one glimpse of Steve’s ear-to-ear grin and Tony’s smirk as Clint drags him to the elevator.

“Hey darlin’,” Bucky says. “There’s really no rush. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Vex and Squishy and Hope for encouraging me to write, and to Pherryt for that and everything else. Love you all!!!!


End file.
